GDC 2025 Session Viewer
'Diablo IV': Making Hell Navigable by Low Vision Users
Drew McCrory (Lead Accessibility Designer - Diablo, Blizzard)
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Core Pass - Get your pass now!
Track: Design
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: All
In this talk, Drew discusses how, in a live development environment, the Diablo 4 team strives to fully empower the blind community to engage with the content as gamers first, blind second. By targeting features early in development and pushing to PTR servers, it is possible to design through community engagement, user research, and an open mind, in order to provide blind gamers with the tools necessary to enable high-end play. We look at the feature set as initially designed, and how, post-direct feedback, developers can pivot and target the exact needs of their players. The session details exactly how the Diablo 4 audio navigation functions, how it evolves, and what complexity new features are planned based on player feedback.
Takeaway
Attendees will leave with a working knowledge of how to design community accepted audio navigation for an open world action RPG.
Intended Audience
The intended audience is developers with a passion for accessible design, targeting mostly designers and engineers, with a splash of audio design as well. Should be high enough level in most points for the general audience. If you have passion for accessibility, this talk will bring value to you.
